Where do you get that from? Over the last 25 years real wages (wages adjusted to inflation) have oscillated up and down, but are currently about 4.2% less today than they were in 1980. That's 4.2% total, not 4.2% a year. (As a historical note, almost all of that drop occurred in 1980, real wages have been fairly flat since '81 and are actually a bit higher than the 25 year average)
On the other hand, gasoline (adjusted for inflation) has fallen by about 50%. It doesn't take a math genius to figure out that if you drop wages by 4.2% and drop price by 50%, you are paying substantially less of your wages into gasoline.
I'm comparing to my own wages.